A review for all the chapters of this novel...
Plot:
Overall the plot is fascinating and has some good accompanying subplots mixed in. The blend of science fiction and fantasy is very interesting, and your main character alone is worth the read.
My major criticism of the plot is that sometimes scenes and characters changed or were added so quickly that I was lost trying to figure out what was going on. More often than not this was because of the abundance of featureless characters. More on this in a bit.
Sometimes the point of view is not always clear or shifts in mid-scene. This seems to happen most often when Caleath appears to be the point of view, but it shifts to someone else’s opinion of him. I realize this is because you want us to know how other people feel about him. But truthfully, you have crafted Caleath so well that I know what someone else will think before you even tell me. Your characters generally react to Caleath in the same way most anyone would react to a person like Caleath. Also, try to pick a few important points of view to use instead of many points of view from the vast array of characters. For example, the best point of views would probably be Caleath, Gwilt, Nasith, and maybe Lachlan. I think you could tell the entire story (or what’s written so far) from exclusively their points of view. The positives of doing it that way are we know each of those characters inside and out, and the reader isn’t lost flipping back and forth between several personalities and points of view. Each of those four characters has a distinct personality, and after a while the reader would probably be able to identify the point of view very quickly.
There is a lot of background information being told throughout the story. Quite often you give it as someone explicitly telling a story to someone else. When you first did this between Gwilt and Chesney, I thought it was a bit clever, but after a while it began to wear on my nerves. Sometimes vague flashbacks/reflections give just enough of the back story to keep the reader going. But some of your background information was exposition that bogged the story down, especially regarding Caleath’s history. You told much the same information in several different ways from several different voices. One telling is sufficient. Or even better, a scattered telling of his history that doesn’t explain everything could occur throughout the book. On the other hand, Caleath’s history is so integral and so fascinating, it might be his previous life should be a prequel book or the beginning of a series in which this is the second book.
Some more specific points of confusion that stood out in the reading are:
 Caleath and Nasith’s relationship seems to happen very suddenly. We learn later that Nasith was betwitched, but what was Caleath’s excuse? Why did he fall in love with her so quickly? As aloof and abrasive as he is, wouldn’t he have been suspicious of her or reluctant to form such a bond? I was certainly suspicious of her sudden change of heart.
Caleath seems to know everything. I understand he knows so many languages because of his language implant (or something like that), but how does he know all the cultures of this land? I think it might be more interesting in places if Caleath didn’t understand his surroundings quite so well.
Why didn’t Sam/Azriel kill Gwilt when she had the chance? She took down Teale in the guise of Caleath, so taking the extra time to kill him didn’t seem like something she should avoid. Or did she think he was dead? Hmmm… maybe I misread it.
Caleath and Spider’s argument regarding the Caleath/Rhiannon relationship seemed a bit odd. It just struck me as out of character for Spider.
There might be more but I misplaced one sheet of my notes.
Character Development
What I consider to be the main characters are well developed. Caleath, Gwilt, and Lachlan have distinct personalities and react in ways someone of their ilk ought to react. I find them to be very interesting and likable characters. Normally, I dislike the young sidekicks that Gwilt is reminiscent of, but you’ve managed to make him believable and sympathetic.
Nasith is a bit harder to pin down, and I credit that to a lack of Nasith point of views. To be honest I don’t care a whole lot about her, and that’s probably because I don’t know enough about how she feels. Now, because her feelings toward Caleath have been bewitched, it might be hard to express her real self, but I think it would be worth the effort. Shortly after she was introduced, it looked as if Nasith’s point of view would be crucial to the story, second only to Caleath. However, by the end of what you have written, we rarely know what’s going through her head and almost never get her point of view.
Some of the supporting cast are well done, including Penwryt, Rybolt, and Mykael. It looks as if Paskin, Sam/Azriel, and Braidon will also be well developed for secondary characters, but they’ve just been introduced so it’s hard to tell. Also, the various allusions to the nefarious Ephraim are well done. I look forward to learning more about him.
After that there are a slew of characters that change from chapter to chapter, or even scene to scene. And to be frank, it’s all very confusing. There are so many characters you take the time to identify but don’t seem crucial to the story. Because many of them only hang around for a chapter or don’t really have any effect on the events, I can’t even remember who they are. For example:
Besides Rybolt, Lachlan, and Mykael, I can’t remember any of the many other rangers. Therefore, do they even need to be in the story?
Besides Paskin, I can’t name a single bandit/brigand. Are all their identities worth conveying to the reader?
Besides Eluart, whose purpose eludes me, I can’t name another Vergottern (except Gwilt who doesn’t really count). Overall the visit with the Vergottern troubled me. There was a lot going on with a lot of characters. But then again, it was around 1:00AM when I read that chapter.
I can’t remember Spider’s geopolitical and ethnic affiliations, and to me Spider seems like a cardboard cutout. In fact, he’s pretty much a carbon copy of Gwilt so far, except that his importance to the story has been minimal. Could you combine Gwilt and Spider into one character?
Is Flea really a necessary character? Thus far, the only importance I see for him is he’s Azriel’s first victim, but couldn’t any nameless wretch serve that purpose?
At first I expected Chesney to be a major player. It turns out his only purpose was to relay Caleath’s past to Gwilt. Couldn’t this be accomplished another way? Though he’s a unique and likable character, is Chesney really a necessary character?
See where I’m going wiith this? You have a lot of named characters that are featureless. Of course you don’t want to explain in detail every character, so I think the solution is to eliminate most or all of them. Obviously you need to hang on to some, but I think you can manage to cut out quite a few without altering the story in any significant way.
Setting:
No complaints here. I had no trouble discerning the setting. You have a flair for description and metaphor. Though I have to admit, I can’t critique setting very fairly. I was so interested in the story I occasionally skimmed expository description to get back to the plot.
Theme:
One could probably argue there are several themes to this piece, and I think you’ve done fine with all of them. Most of the themes are driven by Caleath’s past and personality, and this makes for an interesting tale.
The subplots contribute to the theme on most occasions. However, I don’t understand the importance of Mykael’s reclaiming of his throne. It doesn’t seem to have any real important to Caleath’s adventures or the defense against the Tarack. Obviously Myraek’s army is important to the conflict, but I don’t understand how his ascension to the throne is important to his opposition to the Tarack.
Action:
This is very much an action story, and the action is generally well done.
All the action that takes place has a consequence. At first Caleath’s battles made him an outlaw. Then they lost him the support of Penwryt. Then they got him on Mykael’s bad side. Then they transformed his relationship with the bandits/brigands, both for bad and good. And most recently, his battle with the dragon earned the safety of his followers but released Orwin Tallowbrand. So there is definite sense of building tension throughout--well done!
The action sequences are usually described in detail. Occasionally you go a bit overboard in describing the step by step action taken by Caleath. We know how deadly he is, you don’t need to reiterate the fact every time.
Despite the consequences of his actions, I wonder if Caleath is invincible. I knew the outcome of every fight before it even started. I realize he’s been trained to be a killer, but shouldn’t he have some weakness? If not physical, then mental? Because he’s unbeatable, the suspense is lessened.
The fight between Caleath and the Dragon was masterfully done. I applaud you.
Story line:
The flow of the story was a problem in that it wasn’t consistent:
Some scenes are very long and others are very short. Short, interjectory scenes are usually used in climatic situations or in “shifty eyes” scenarios (the same event is seen through the eyes of multiple characters in short bursts), and you use them quite well in those situations. But often you use very short scenes to fill in the blanks between scenes that happen far apart in time.
Some scenes span days/weeks/months and others happen in real-time. There’s no problem with this except when you mix them to tell simultaneous storylines.
Single scenes are split into two or more contiguous, delineated scenes for the apparent purpose of changing point of view. It’s my opinion that when you’re writing in third person limited you need to stick to a single point of view over the course of a scene. Breaking it up to get multiple viewpoints is indicative of a failure to show the emotions/thoughts/reactions of people outside the current point of view.
General Comments:
Watch out for clichés. Somebody in the story said, “We don’t take kindly to strangers.” It’s an overused expression that didn’t seem to fit the dialog of your world anyway. Similarly, Caleath used the phrase “really piss me off.” It’s a cliché that didn’t seem to fit his usually very formal dialog.
Every character seems to be very articulate. Their dialogs are formal, grammatically correct, and overflowing with “big words.” It’s obvious from the reading that you have an incredible vocabulary, and it tends to show up in your characters. However, not everyone speaks the same way. And in fact, a small percentage of people speak so eloquently. The unfortunate truth is that there are a lot of stupid people out there. And there are even more people who simply can’t express themselves so well in casual conversation (myself included). So I think you need to diversify your dialog. Make some people of varying educations and backgrounds and vernacular usages. One of the most identifiable traits of any character is his dialog, so I suggest unique dialog for unique characters.
The name immediately preceding or proceeding quoted dialog is usually who the reader assumes is speaking. There are several occasions in which this name was not the person speaking. You should probably move those names to eliminate the confusion.
Don’t tell the names of strangers before they’re introduced. For example, when meeting the Nomads, you told the reader the names of some Nomads before Caleath even knew their names.
Watch your use of adverbs. They should be kept to a minimum. Most notably you use them to convey mood during dialog. Describing actions or carefully choosing the dialog works better.
Chapter 16 was simply awesome. I was completely captivated.
A ran across this phrase and just had to ask about it: “a huge pot of some description” What does that mean? Was “some description” a placeholder you intended to fill in with some description and never got around to it? Or does “a huge pot of some description” actually have a viable meaning?
Overall I really liked this story. I think it’s a bogged down with too many seemingly unimportant characters and unnecessary repetition of Caleath’s past, and suffers from some POV shifting and a few poor scene transitions. However, the characters and plot are intriguing and worth the reading. My major suggestions are to eliminate all details, including several characters, that aren’t crucial to the plot, to have some semblance of scene uniformity within single chapters, and to focus the point of view on a handful of “main” characters.
Problematic Content  
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